Freedom to Ramble

Last night just before I went to bed I found out about the Batman Golden Child social media snafu that DC comics has found itself mixed up in. I guess the idea is that they published an image to promote the Batman Golden Child comic that Included some features that a few Chinese bloggers took exception to. These objectionable images were claimed to be showing support for the Hong Kong protesters that are currently fighting for multiple freedoms in that city. The black cape that Batman is wearing in the image was said to represent the black attire that the protesters are wearing. I guess the people complaining have never seen Batman before but if I recall he’s usually wearing black and that includes quite a few decades before Hong Kong had any notion of protesting for freedom. The Golden Child subtitle was claimed to be a reference to the color yellow which I guess is somehow related to the Hong Kong protesters in someway and the fact that Batman was shown in the act of throwing a Molotov cocktail somehow indicated that he was supporting the protests because no one else except the Hong Kong protesters have ever use Molotov cocktails. I’m surprised they’re not called Hong Kong cocktails with how much they represent the protests in Hong Kong.

In any case those are my initial thoughts and I haven’t really considered much beyond that since I was asleep but I felt that I needed to comment because we seem to be in a current environment in this country where our businesses are bowing down to a foreign power. When DC comics removes an advertisement because a few Chinese bloggers complain about random references to protests for freedom I find that troubling. When Blizzard bans players because they express support of people struggling for freedom I find it troubling.
Whatever happened to comics and the entertainment industry being a bastion of free speech? I’m sure Stan Lee and Marvel had plenty of strongly worded letters complaining about Black Panther and Luke Cage when they came out but they still got published. I’m pretty sure there were racist emails about the Black Panther movie last year but it was still promoted and released. I know Star Trek had plenty of complaints when Uhura was shown on the bridge of the Enterprise and the same goes for Sulu and Chekhov.

While I don’t expect all businesses to blatantly promote freedom and the political ideals of democracy, I don’t expect them to bow down to censorship. As far as I recall one of the primary ways that Western society successfully navigated the Cold War was because we were able to export our cultural values and freedoms through advertising, through media, in comics, and television. Are we now in a society where totalitarian regimes are the ones exporting their cultural values into our democracy?

After doing some research it seems the comic will in fact be published next week with the controversial cover, instead it was the promotional material that was pulled back after the Chinese complaints. While this is definitely a more satisfactory situation it still highlights the influence a totalitarian country has been exerting in the Western world. Hopefully as businesses learn that their paying customers in the West don’t appreciate being sidelined by the political interests of countries that want to censor free speech, they will stand up to these totalitarian regimes and support freedom.

Oh yeah and the image was of Batwoman rather than Batman.

Ramble #30 | Freedom to Ramble